The Success of OFEC

We were delighted to be invited to Magna Carta College in Oxford to present to the  ABE Level 4 Business Class students. They were keen to find out how a SME could be successful considering 90% of small business fail in their first year. Edward Williams was pleased to explain the journey OFEC took to become a Microsoft Partner now employing staff.

It started at the begining looking at the ethos of OFEC i.e. to produce intelligent and engaging websites. What does this mean? OFEC strive to make attractive, practical websites that contain uniquely optimised systems which make IT and data work very effectively for businesses.  BT (British Telecom) loved OFEC’s systems so much they gave OFEC no fewer than 18 contracts.  Quite an achievement since OFEC employs only four key staff.

So what are the keys to OFEC’s success?  Edward admitted his journey to success was a personal one, but it was clear that there were very important elements.  He is a genius at seeing opportunities. He grasped them at the right time and he took calculated risks.  He realised that the three cornerstones of success were ‘operations’, ‘sales’ and ‘finance’ and learned to be very disciplined in balancing sales and operations.  He learned quickly about the need to do market research and to focus his attention on what actually worked, rather than firing out too many unfocused ideas.  He soon selected his niche market, his unique selling product, and aimed for the top.  He was willing to adapt as the competition caught up with his ideas.  Edward puts OFEC’s success down to these key things, and stressed the importance of taking the initiative, enjoying learning, handling stress effective and good people skills.

The ABE students had the chance to ask Edward questions, and also to give their opinion about one of OFEC’s new projects – a ‘do-it-yourself’ college eprospectus which users would be able to make into a personal flip book containing everything they wanted to know about a college, on the college’s website.

The two hour talk was part of a weekly ‘free session’ programme, organised by our Academic  Director Gerry Takamura.  Gerry’s aim is that our ABE students should have as much exposure to local businesses through talks and visits, to see how things work in Britain.